Pine Bluff Sand and Gravel Co. Buys Ingram Materials Unit

Details

Published: Monday, 18 July 2011 17:55

Written by Rock Products News

Pine Bluff Sand and Gravel Co., Pine Bluff, Ark., and Ingram Industries Inc., Nashville, announced that they have entered into an agreement for Ingram to sell its Ingram Materials LLC subsidiary to Pine Bluff.

Ingram Materials serves markets in Tennessee, Kentucky and Alabama; and also operates three sand dredges on the Ohio River in Paducah, Ky. It has distribution facilities in Nashville, Clarksville and New Johnsonville, Tenn.; Paducah, Ky.; and Decatur and Florence, Ala.

Brian McGeorge, COO and vice president of Pine Bluff said the company is “excited by the opportunity to continue the hard work done by Ingram over the years to build a valuable, well-run company which shares a similar culture as Pine Bluff.”

Orrin Ingram, president and CEO of Ingram Industries Inc., noted that the sale of Ingram Materials is “an opportunity to align with an industry leader more focused on the production and sale of sand and aggregate.”

“Pine Bluff and Ingram are both family-owned companies with cultures that place great value on associate satisfaction and safe operations, so it means a lot that our Ingram Materials associates will become part of a company that shares our values,” Ingram said.

Pine Bluff's original business in 1913 was sand and gravel dredging on the Arkansas River. “Sand dredging continues to be a major part of our company. We are extremely excited to acquire a company in a line of business we know very well with a significant presence in very attractive markets,”McGeorge said.

“Pine Bluff's leadership position in the sand and aggregate industry should allow us to combine the strengths of Ingram Materials and Pine Bluff,” he said. “Ingram has many customers and partner-distributors, and Pine Bluff looks forward to continuing and expanding those relationships.”

McGeorge also said that Pine Bluff intends to hire all of the existing Ingram Materials associates and continue operations substantially unchanged. Ingram Materials will operate under the name Pine Bluff Materials Co. going forward.

As part of this transaction, Pine Bluff and Ingram Barge Co. will enter into a long-term towage agreement under which Ingram Barge and Pine Bluff will tow Pine Bluff's sand and gravel barges on the Cumberland and Tennessee Rivers.

The Ingram Materials business was first established in 1927 by other owners who called it the Ohio River Sand Co. A successor to this business, called the Cumberland River Sand and Gravel Co., was purchased by the Ingram family in 1962 and renamed Ingram Materials.

At that time, the business included a large sand yard facility on the east bank of the Cumberland River, visible from downtown Nashville. Ingram Materials relocated its operations to its current Nashville location in 1997 – to make room for Nashville's then-new NFL stadium built for the Tennessee Titans.